[New Entry by Julian Reiss and Rachel A. Ankeny on June 6, 2016.]
Philosophy of medicine is a field that seeks to explore fundamental issues in theory, research, and practice within the health sciences, particularly metaphysical and epistemological topics. Its historic roots arguably date back to ancient times, to the Hippocratic corpus among other sources, and there have been extended scholarly discussions on key concepts in the philosophy of medicine since at least the 1800s. Debates have occurred in the past over whether there is a distinct field rightly termed "philosophy of...